IS EMR A FLAWED MEASUREMENT OF SAFETY PERFORMANCE?

Summary

Many Government agencies and owners use a contractor’s Experience Modification Rate (EMR) as an acceptable and accurate measurement of that contractor’s loss prevention record and safety performance. Although there sometimes is a direct relationship between the effectiveness of a contractor’s safety performance and their EMR, the EMR number can be misleading and an inaccurate representation of safety performance. More accurate and representative measurements of a contractor’s safety performance are the OSHA Total Recordable Incident Rates (TRIR) and OSHA Days Away, Restricted or Transferred (DART) rate. The TRI and DART rates are OSHA Benchmarks to gauge safety results/performance against other companies in similar industries. The TRI rate measures the frequency of OSHA recordable accidents in proportion to the number of hours worked (i.e. number of employees) and the DART rate measures losses (frequency and severity) based on total number of hours worked. As these rates are directly proportional to hours worked, they are a better indicator of the effectiveness of the Contractor’s Safety and Health Program than the EMR.